Town Square

Buena Vista resident who received city settlement faces burglary charges

Original post made
on Nov 27, 2019

Gustavo Alvarez, the Buena Vista Mobile Home Park resident who recently received a $572,500 settlement from the city of Palo Alto after he was violently arrested in 2018, has been charged with three counts of second degree burglary.

Certain irony to all of this. It seems quite evident and without any doubt due to surveillance footage that he is guilty. Don’t agree with excessive use of force by the police, they kind of shot themslves in the foot there.

Posted by What did you expect these days!
a resident of Downtown North
on Nov 29, 2019 at 12:55 pm

Low-lifes will be low-lifes! Maybe we should help the police to roust some of these people out of town to help lower the crime in the area!

Paying this guy off in the first place was ridiculous but apparently you can't trust a jury these days to have enough common sense to realize when someone is lying and isn't really "being picked on". The city never goes to court because they will end up with some bleeding heart jury that will fine them 2 or 3 million rather than the 500K they end up paying. So they just pay.

He will be back again because once he pays the lawyers this time they will have all of the money

Posted by Anon
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Nov 30, 2019 at 6:35 pm

Posted by What did you expect these days!, a resident of Downtown North

>> Paying this guy off in the first place was ridiculous but apparently you can't trust a jury these days

Actually, it makes it all the dumber what officer whatshisname did at Buena Vista.

Unfortunately, punitive damages are the only tool that actually works to get rid of abusive police officers. I don't care how many felonies someone is guilty of-- it isn't the job of the police to administer the punishment on the spot. But, even more importantly, we don't want or need angry, impulsive cops who lose their cool. It is that simple. Keeping your cool in these situations is Job One. Unfortunately, big payouts seem to be the only thing that actually forces police departments to de-employ (they actually never seem to get -fired- like you or I would) abusive police officers.

Posted by Really?
a resident of Mountain View
on Dec 1, 2019 at 5:52 pm

I get that the City did not want to upset residents by a long, expensive trial, but in this case, I think they should have. The only video released was what his lawyer released and it was cut to show some time after the vehicle was driven into the driveway.

The officer lost control and made remarks about Gustavo being gay, which changed the tone from a (still not justifyable aggressive/violent arrest) criminal matter to a gay bashing matter.

He, obviously, just became more emboldened in his criminal activity feeling he was untouchable. I mean,7 felonies, 11 misdeminers in a 20 year period? And those are just the ones he was charged on.

If you ever went into the park, they have people riding in and out by his place all hours of the day and night. I'm just glad the new owners put in security.

Posted by Nick
a resident of another community
on Dec 2, 2019 at 6:03 pm

We should all keep our cool 100% of the time, but that's NOT reality. If the average person could lose their temper, how do you think cops handle it? The crap they have to put up with - I'm surprised they don't lose it more often. They HUMAN - not robots. It's not their fault that suspects are a**holes. Get real.